Put Your Money Under The Rug
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday June 28, 1989
Persian rugs: the thought brings images of the mystic east, of flying carpets, of Indian fakirs in Calcutta.
And you can bring them all to your living room.
High quality Persian and oriental rugs are a worthy investment, offering art value and a practical floor or wall covering.
According to Mr Robert Cadry, of Cadry's Persian Carpets at Edgecliff and North Sydney, some rugs have increased more than 100 per cent in value in the past five years.
"I think the market has really grown incredibly because the general public has become aware of the great variation of colour and design (in the rugs) and their capacity to blend in with any type of decor," Mr Cadry said.
"They are probably the most economical floor covering because of their tremendous wearing quality. They are going to last 30, 40, or 50 years, or a lifetime."
Strictly, Persian rugs come from Iran, formerly Persia, but the term also encompass rugs from the Middle East, Asia, Turkey, Southern Russia, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The world's oldest carpet, the Pazyrk Rug, dates to 500 BC and is kept in Leningrad's Hermitage Museum. The carpet was believed to have been preserved in ice following a break-in by grave robbers which allowed freezing air into its holding vault in southern Siberia.
The three main types of Persian rug are tribal, village and city.
The tribal rugs, usually spun from wool, evolve from a weaver's memory of traditional designs and do not follow patterns, so many have irregularities.
When rug making later spread from the tribes to the villages, materials such as cotton and silk were added to the wool. Like the tribal rugs, village rugs have geometric designs and bold colours, but use more advanced patterns.
City-woven rugs, which evolved in the 16th century to meet the demand for large carpets by fashionable European houses, usually have softer colours, and some use floral designs.
Mr Cadry says a 1.8-metre by 1.2-metre rug from India, Pakistan or China fetches $250 to $700. The better village rugs - Turkish, Persian and Caucasian(from the Caucasus Mountains in the southern USSR) - cost $400 to $1,500, and the finer city rugs sell from $1,500 to $8,000 or more.
But Mr Cadry says quality can vary within certain styles of rug so they should be valued individually. He also warns novice buyers to be careful when choosing a carpet.
"There are a lot of fly-by-nighters in the market having exhibitions in community halls one weekend and they are gone the next," Mr Cadry said.
"Before you choose a genuine carpet, chose a genuine carpet dealer. We have seen time and time again people wanting a bargain and winding up with a rug of inferior quality."
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald